Let me start with some rather startling numbers from the US. One survey they’ve been running in America since 1972 asks Americans about journalists.

This survey asks, ‘Do you have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in mass media?’

The category ‘mass media’ relates to what we today might call the legacy media, the TV news, and the established newspapers. Notice, too, that a half-hearted ‘fair amount’ reply gets counted as a positive response.

As recently as the early-2000s, 54 per cent of respondents said ‘yes’. Today, those with a good deal or fair amount of trust is down to 31 per cent. Another long-running survey asks, ‘Do you trust mass media to report fully, accurately, and fairly?’ This one breaks down responses by party affiliation. Today, only 13 per cent of Republicans answer ‘yes’. Only 27 per cent of Independents do so. But near-on 70 per cent of Democrats answer ‘yes’.

Another bit of data may explain that yawning chasm or gap. This one is about the party affiliation of journalists in the legacy media. It is how journalists self-report.

In 1982, 38.5 per cent claimed to be Democrats. 39 per cent to be Independents. And 19 per cent to be Republicans. Move forward 40 years to 2022 and a similar 36.5 per cent claimed to be Democrats, 52 per cent claimed to be Independents, but just 3.5 per cent claimed to be Republicans. And that was when Joe Biden was President. No sentient being believes that things aren’t worse – more skewed – under President Trump given how many supposed conservative journalists have near-fatal cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS).

It’s been a year and a quarter since President Trump was inaugurated for his second term. Here’s what a left-leaning survey found as regards to legacy media’s negative coverage of this Trump 2 administration:

Mr Trump himself got a 92-per-cent-negative coverage score (and right-leaning surveys put the negativity much higher). RFK Jr got a 94 per cent negative score, Elon Musk 96 per cent, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth 100 per cent negative, and JD Vance got a comparatively ripping score of only 88 per cent negative.

This isn’t balanced journalism. It’s left-wing propaganda. And US voters know it.

That’s why Trump could win in 2024 in the face of wall-to-wall legacy media hatred and coverage more negative than what they give to North Korea’s leader (plus being massively outspent).

In the last year and a quarter, President Trump’s administration has reduced the federal public service – those working as bureaucrats – to its smallest level since 1966. (That’s absolute numbers, not some percentage of overall employment.)

Meanwhile, last month’s Jobs Report in the US showed the economy gained 178,000 jobs (despite the Federal bureaucracy losing another 18,000). Unemployment was down to 4.3 per cent. Construction jobs surged. At the end of Biden’s first year overall inflation was up 4.3 per cent. For Trump 2 it’s up just 1.3 per cent. Petrol or gas at the one-year point was up 24.5 per cent under Biden but down 1.4 per cent under Trump 2.

Oh, and murders are at a 100-year low. The US is self-sufficient in fossil fuels, in fact, it’s now a big exporter. President Trump has pulled out of all sorts of malign supranational bodies, the UN Human Rights Council, the WTO, and Paris being the worst of the worst.

Did I mention that illegal immigration is at its lowest in recorded US history? And this while fighting an activist judiciary and a Democrat party that is more obstructionist than any in living memory. Plus, the Chamber of Commerce or Rino Republican Congressional leadership is doing nothing. No recess appointments are they making, not one, though the Dems made hundreds. Not a single bill passed if the Democrats threatened a filibuster, not even forcing the Dems to actually speak – as in a real filibuster not one on the papers, as it were.

Of course lots of people might not like everything in the above list (though I like every single bit of it). But 92 per cent or higher negative coverage by the legacy media? Come off it. What’s amazing is not that only 13 per cent of today’s Republicans believed the legacy media report ‘fully, accurately, and fairly’. What’s amazing is that any of them, or any Independents, still believe this. It’s patent nonsense – exactly what I would say about ‘our’ ABC here in Australia for what it’s worth.

And of course that exact same hate-filled near-deranged coverage had to be expected by President Trump when he launched the attacks on Iran. A theocracy with end-of-world beliefs and long-range missiles capable of reaching much of Europe, not to mention one uber-close to producing a nuclear weapon, and Mr Trump’s attacks have destroyed that country’s navy, its air force, most all of its missiles, its missile launchers, taken out the entire top echelons of its leadership, destroyed much of its proxy armies, ended any and all ability to produce nuclear weapons for decades, with only thirteen US servicemen and women so far killed and the legacy media says Trump is losing. In no other war ever conducted would this count as a ‘loss’. No, Trump has not brought about regime change. Because he is not going to go down the George W. Bush route in Iraq. We all hope the 80 per cent of Iranians who hate their corrupt theocratic regime can overthrow it. But it’s surely not easy when the regime’s thugs have the guns and are prepared to kill tens of thousands for protesting – as Iran did before Trump attacked. Obviously no war runs perfectly or to plan. Mistakes have no doubt been made. But I’d bet oil and gas prices are way down again within two months.

Here’s the thing. Trump is mocking, derisory, callous, and boorish. Right now I don’t think he cares about the polls (though these are largely as biased as the legacy media, just go back and look at the one that predicted he’d lose Iowa before the last election). President Trump has a bucket list of promises and wishes and he’s working his way down it. Iran’s theocratic thugs were always a Trump target. But without boots on the ground.

Some supposedly right-of-centre commentators here in Australia seem as deranged about Trump as the older, shouty ‘No Kings’ loonies on the left. We know that these TDS sufferers seem to value etiquette and conventional orthodoxies more than actions, results, and courage. For me, courage trumps all. There is none of it in Australia’s two main establishment political parties. Zip. Zero. Meanwhile, some European countries who want all the benefits of Nato won’t even let the US warplanes use their airspace. That’s a dangerous game when European countries have to cheat like crazy (think, ‘counting pensions paid as part of defence spending’) just to get to the now-outdated 2 per cent of GDP requirement.

Put it this way. I’ve got bets for bottles of wine on the Republicans winning the midterms later this year, the polls notwithstanding, and I still think that happens. Sure, it would help if the Rinos in the Senate passed the Save Act. But I think they win though Clinton and Obama lost big in their mid-terms. The legacy media does not move the dial anymore. And the Democratic party is setting all-time records for unpopularity.

Meantime, could the TDS sufferers here in Oz please seek help?